


Maybe Next Year, There'll Be More Time.

by miss_nettles_wife



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: AU, Angst, Blood, Character Death, Drowning, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hunger Games AU, Hysteria, Murder, bludgeoning, look its a hunger games au you get what you expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 16:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20138344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_nettles_wife/pseuds/miss_nettles_wife
Summary: as the clock ticks down on the last three contestants in the Hunger Games, Charlie forms and loses an alliance.





	Maybe Next Year, There'll Be More Time.

**Author's Note:**

> based on a game of hunger games simulator i was posting about on the discord. whack. written in one hour and totally un revised due to 3 am

“You spared him last time.” Charlie said, wet from the waist down. Matthew Lawson’s blue faced body drifted close to them. Blake was kneeling on the ice and wet from the waist up. He glanced at Charlie, and then used one hand to push Lawson into the current. 

“I did.” He agreed. 

“Why not this time?” He asked, even though he kind of already knows the reason. This is the Hunger Games, they’re here to kill people. But last time, Blake had spared him. Charlie had huddled with him for shelter on terribly cold night, and traded stories about themselves, about their families that were waiting for them back home. It didn’t seem fair for him to be dead now, after making it to the last four. 

“Last time, he was just trying to get to pictures of his family.” Blake responded, and tipped Lawson’s bag out, sifting through it for useful items. A pair of boots, some clean water in a tin from sponsors, to which Charlie had an identical one that had come full of food, a few bloody rags, a cracked photo of a small family and lastly, a mace covered in flecks of dry blood.

William Munro’s blood, Charlie is pretty sure. But it could just have easily belonged to Mattie O’Brien or any of the other dead people that were not fortunate enough to strike up a partnership with an army veteran. Perhaps it was just how pathetic he looked after the tsunami, or after his camp was raided, or his desperate attempts to sleep that had endeared him to the older man. Or maybe Blake just needed someone to do the leg work. Whatever the case, Charlie had an up.

He was sure that this was being broadcast as something to tune in for. Who will snap first, Charlie or Blake? What crazy event will split them up? Terror fumbles around in the dark stain that’s left of his heart. Will he be drowned? The way he drowned Ned Simmons and Matthew Lawson? He doesn’t think he can bare it. Suddenly, he can’t bare to be in the icy water either and using his hands he scrambles out. 

Once he’s out, Blake examines his compass and gives Charlie both bags to carry, along with the things from Lawson’s. 

“Let’s get back.” He said, and set of walking, Charlie slightly behind. 

As they walked, stars of pain danced along the insides of Charlie’s eyelids from his sore feet. It seemed like the walking never ended. Blake was always two steps ahead, navigating them off the frozen ice and back into the bush where they’d made a temporary camp from the remains of a parachute. 

All business, Blake started counting out their supplies. Charlie sat next to him, watching intently. 

“I never had a son.” Blake says, thoughtfully. 

“You do have children.” 

“A child, a daughter. She was taken from me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He says, finally. “I have brothers, back home.” 

“Three, yes?” 

“Yeah. I wonder if they’re watching the broadcast.”

“You could try to send a message?”

“And risk the wrath of the gamemakers?” He asked, like Blake was an idiot. Blake shrugged, and pulled the pull tab on a can. Inside it smelled of tomatoes. He emptied it into a cooking vessel and set it on their fire. A few days earlier they would have been too scared but now there’s only two of them, and Bill. Two could take Bill. Charlie suddenly bursts out

“What happens when it’s just two of us?” 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I can’t die, I have to look after my brothers.” He said, softly, “And you can’t die either, you’re a doctor. We need doctors.” 

“Charlie. Stop. We will figure it out.” He said, stirring the food with a fork. It makes a terrible metal on metal sound and he blanches. “For right now, we need to eat, and get some rest. Stop crying.” 

He hadn’t even realized he had been. 

“I never knew my dad.” He said, “Not really. He was always working. Lots to do guard work I guess.” 

“I’m sure he loved you if he was working hard to put food on the table.” 

“Yeah.” He said, starring out into the distance. He swore he could feel people looking at him, like fish in a glass bowl. The booming canons were children tapping the surface of the glass. 

“I hope I die first.” He whispered, “I’d be scared to die alone.” 

“You won’t die alone.” Blake assures him, and pressed a metal plate into his hands, along with a spoon. He has the other plate and the fork. He cannot promise anything else. Not right now, and probably not ever. At the end of the month, one of them will be dead. It’s a lot to think on. Up close the tomato smell is pungent in his nostrils and he can barely eat. 

“Eat.” Blake ordered, in a tone that brokered no argument. And Charlie, as he had since his arrival, did. Following orders, seeming non-threatening, that was what had kept him alive. 

…

It’s funny what murder does to the brain. 

It’s all about justification. He justified pushing Ned into the water to drown because he’d been attacking him first. He justified killing Matthew Lawson because Blake asked him too. 

But there was only three of them left. Charlie knew that they were going to have to fight and when they fought, Blake would win. Of course he would. He knew how to fight. It was engraved into his very being. Charlie knew how to skin a squirrel. 

He was probably just slowing Blake down by now. It was almost over, he had no need for a pack horse. He could take Bill Hobart on his own, easily. Charlie rolled over to look at the back of his head. From the sound of his breathing Charlie knew well enough that he was asleep. Or pretending to be. He wasn’t sure Blake slept at all. He was always waiting for the next disaster, wound tight like a coil at the best of times. 

He was probably waiting for Charlie to fall asleep. 

After all, what better time to strike someone than when they’re vulnerable? 

He was probably keeping a knife under the covers with him. He knew that he always kept one on his person. He was predictable like that. If they had two knives Charlie would do the same thing, but there’s only one. And it went to Blake. Of course. Probably because he was biding his time to stab him with it. 

He shifted under the blankets, pulling on some stitches Blake had put into his chest after Bill Hobart stabbed him. He’d looked bad then, pale and dehydrated but damn; he was fast. He’d barely escaped, bleeding and crying when Blake stitched him up, no antiseptic but the water and no pain relief but the stick he was given to bite on. 

Blake had a week spot under his left arm where he got hit by a cross bow while picking herbs and Charlie had to dig it out. If he jammed his fingers in there he could buy himself time to get away. But he’d have to leave all of this stuff they’d accrued, including all their food, behind. 

Blake might have the knife, but there was a mace just by his foot. 

Spurred on by fear or perhaps sleep deprived insanity, he quietly used his foot to pull the mace up to his hands and tightened his fingers around it. Hefty, and strong. He felt woozy, and weak. Shit, he hadn’t been paying attention to what Blake made them to eat. Had he slipped something into the food? His fear ratcheted up a notch at the idea. Nearly hysterical now, Charlie’s breath was coming in short shallow gasps. 

Was Blake poisoning him? Was he already dying? Something wet was sticking to his eyelashes and he tested the weight of the mace as he slid up onto his knees. Maybe he should go outside and throw up? Or was the poison already in his blood? Should he let out his blood? 

His eyes fell on Blake’s prone form. 

Before he can really think about what he’s doing, he’s brought the mace down on his face. 

His eyes shot open, staring up at Charlie as a sickening crunch reverberated around their little tent. He reached up, his fingers touched the side of Charlie’s face, but Charlie doesn’t know what he’s trying to say, and at the bite of his nail he hoists his arms over his head and brought the weapon down again. This time he gurgles blood, clearly trying to speak through what was left of his jaw. Blood is splattered on his face in tiny burning drops. Then, perhaps out of mercy, he brought the mace down again. 

His body seized under Charlie’s weight. Then he went still. He raised the mace again, but this time, he let it drop behind him. Under the enormous weight of what he’d just down, he looked at the knife clutched in Blake’s other hand. 

He doesn’t. Instead, he lay down against Blake’s still body, and pulled his arm over him in a mock hug. There’s sticky blood on his face, mixing with viscous tears as he whispered apologies over and over and over again, as the warmth slowly seeped out of his body. Long after his voice becomes little more than the scratch of raw skin on raw skin, he heard them. 

One canon boom. 

Then another. 

He’s the victor, he realized. The lone, bloody victor. He can’t face it, not alone. Not without Blake. 

Not without Blake. 

He doesn’t move again until they physically force him off of Blake’s frozen corpse for the awards ceremony. 


End file.
